The meeting ended after several minutes of exchanging ideas and talking about their details. Both Aeryx and Ms. Yoshida walked with us to the entrance and we said goodbye as we stepped out. I called Butcher to tell him we were done and we stood in silence while we waited for him. No one could believe what had just happened.

"What are we going to do until the first concert?" Risa wondered.

"Nothing is officially established yet," I answered. "There's a lot of paperwork to do, but you will be working with Aeryx soon."

Out of nowhere, Astra jumped at Risa and squeezed her while grinning. Risa's face grew red as the hug lasted for a few seconds. Astra eventually stepped back and apologized, "Sorry, I'm just very happy. I can't believe this is happening."

"We all are very happy," Aki smiled. She stared at Astra and suddenly pulled her to squeeze her too. "Come here, you adorable genius."

"Eh? Why genius?" Astra asked but received no answer.

Aki kept hugging her and Astra kept giggling until Butcher arrived. He held two cups of coffee and said nothing. Sanae approached him with her hands on her waist and asked him, "Did you go to the bakery?"

Butcher nodded.

"Did you like the coffee?"

Butcher nodded again.

"How many cups have you had?"

Butcher remained silent for a long moment. "This is the fourth one."

Fourth?! It's only been fifty minutes!

Risa started giggling and Sanae burst out laughing. "We told you you were going to get addicted; now there's three of us. By the way, why are you holding two cups? Did you buy one for me?"

"It's for me, right?" Risa smiled.

"It's actually for me," Aya said. We stared at her as she approached Butcher and grabbed the cup. "Thanks." She turned around and noticed we were all staring. "What?"

"When did you even ask him to buy it for you?" I asked.

"After entering the studio. I noticed he stared at the bakery before heading toward it, so I sent him a message. I couldn't miss the chance to drink this coffee." She tilted the cup to take a sip and gasped in delight.

"Alright, you have me sold," Aki said. "Let's go try it."

I hadn't even said anything and she started walking. Everyone else followed her, so I had no other choice but to shake my head and follow them.

We entered the bakery, bought a cup for each one of us, and sat to drink. Everyone was addicted after two sips. I didn't buy one, but Aki forced me to try it. I discovered it was the one and only coffee I liked, although I didn't get addicted.

There was a lot of work to do, so we headed back to HQ as soon as we finished.

As usual, I waited for the storm that inevitably followed the calm. Something horrible always happened to bring us down after being high up, but nothing happened. There was a lot of work to do and everything progressed flawlessly.

The accountant was hired and Jun also arrived. Apart from making simple animations for each of our songs to be uploaded to video platforms, one of his first jobs was working with TOTOT's designer to make special merchandise to sell at the concerts, which TOTOT was in charge of producing. Meanwhile, we also worked on our own merchandise.

Having Jun also allowed us to properly design a stage. Sadly, there wasn't much time to plan something big and the little freight capacity TOTOT could provide us was almost entirely taken up by our merchandise.

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Miki worked hard to learn more about lighting and more technical stuff. Since he improved so much and he had already been doing other jobs aside from sound stuff, I decided to change his job title from sound engineer to stage technician.

The gym equipment also arrived and was set up in the room we had left empty. Satō became the girls' trainer to make sure they were in shape for the concerts.

Before we knew it, HQ began to feel cramped, both in terms of equipment and people.

The order for our lunch meals arrived. Butcher received it and walked around the first floor to give the food to us before heading upstairs to do the same.

I unpacked my salad with chicken and lifted the fork to take the first bite when Butcher returned to our office and knocked on the door. Confused, I lowered the fork and answered, "Come in."

He stepped in and said, "I'm sorry for bothering you, young man, but the girls want you to come to the dance studio."

"Did they tell you why?"

He shook his head.

I sighed. "Alright, I'm going."

Butcher nodded and walked away.

About to step out of the office, I returned to my desk to grab the salad and take it with me upstairs. I entered the dance studio to see the girls unpacking their food on the floor and Satō sitting in one of the chairs in the corner. The surprise of seeing me made the noodle she was slurping brake and fall on her chest. Her entire face became red as she grabbed the noodle and laughed nervously.

We need a cafeteria.

I approached the girls and sat down with them on the floor. I couldn't wait to eat, so I didn't even ask why they had called me. They probably noticed how hungry I was and decided not to bother me until I was finished, which only took a couple of minutes.

Aki started to say, "You should hold back—," but my monstrous burp stopped her.

I tried to hold it back as hard as I could, but it was impossible. Aki, Sanae, and Umi stared at me with a deadpan expression, while Astra and Risa chuckled.

I didn't mind the girls hearing me burp, but my face flushed when I remembered that Satō was there. I quickly turned toward her to apologize, "I'm very sorry."

"Don't worry, it also happens" —a burp came out of her mouth in the middle of the sentence—"to me." Her face grew red again. "See?"

I laughed nervously and turned back toward the girls. "What did you want to tell me?"

Still eating, the girls glanced at each other before Sanae answered, "We have a good idea for the album."

We had been talking about it from time to time for several weeks already, but I didn't know they were still thinking about it.

"What is it?" I wondered.

Sanae continued, "It's been a few weeks since we've been talking about us to get to know each other better, but we hadn't thought about how little our fans know about us until Risa brought it up."

"So?"

"So we thought about telling them about each of us through a song."

I glanced at them in silence before resting my chin on my hand as I thought. "As long as you're willing to give away more of your privacy, that's a good idea, but isn't an album with five songs too short?"

"There's no law for how many songs an album should have," Umi replied.

"I know but, compared to the first album, it would be disappointing."

"Then why don't we make two songs per person?" Astra suggested. "Two multiplied by five is ten, plus the bonus song we'll make with Aeryx, they will make for eleven songs, just like the first album." Apart from the song Aeryx wanted to record with Blostars, we had asked if we could make a song for our album as well, to which they instantly agreed.

Aki stroked Astra's head, making her hair messy. "You adorable genius," Aki smiled.

"Sounds good," I said, "but making two songs per person won't be an easy task. You need to convey a very specific message of who you are in two three-minute songs without them feeling disconnected."

Risa replied, "One song could be used to tell the past and the other one to tell the present and the future."

"We can also afford to have very different genres," Umi added. "Since the songs will be tied to one of us, each person can choose the genre they prefer for them. You can even write the songs if you want, then I'll give them the final touches and make sure they'll work well together."

"I'd say it's a must that each of you writes your songs," I said.

"What if we don't know how to write a song?" Astra asked.

"Just write them however you can," Umi answered, "I'll make them into songs."

"Okay."

"It's decided, then," I smiled.